Originally from Garland, Texas, Melanie Bush moved to The Woodlands area in 2006. As a graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Bush has had her own bookkeeping business since she was a junior in college.

Bush has been involved with Conroe ISD since 2010, when her oldest child was in kindergarten. She was elected to the board in 2014 and was appointed president in late 2016.

The catalyst that made her want to be more heavily involved with the district came from working at Conroe High School with the Executive Women’s Alliance, she said. The program aims to help at-risk girls go to college through mentorship and scholarship opportunities.

When did you initially become interested in being a CISD board member?

[I saw] The Woodlands [area] feeder zone and the Conroe [area] feeder zone, and how amazing the standard of education is but how diverse our district was. Living [in The Woodlands] and mentoring [in Conroe], you see a completely different side of the district that a lot of people don’t see. I loved mentoring up there. I wish I could continue to do it every month, but that’s a big commitment that, when I joined the board, I let go of.

What are some of your goals as board president?

[I want] to continue our fiscal responsibility. With the legislative session, you never know what’s going to happen. House Bill 21 is something we watched very closely. We were glad that there was more money in it, but we do not agree with how they did the transportation allotment.

The other thing is what we’ve done with emphasizing the Year of Kindness. I love our theme this year. I think teaching the resiliency and focusing on kindness and taking care of each other and having that attitude is crucial on our campuses.

What has your attention during this year’s legislative session?

Education finance has been something we’ve been watching, and now seeing what they’re going to do to reconcile is where we’re keeping an eye out. I always look at what they’re doing to standards. It doesn’t look like they’re looking at changing any accountability standards this year. I think that we all just kind of watch and wait and see what the Legislature does. I wish there was a little bit more of a voice from people on the ground in the Legislature. A lot of people there haven’t been on a board or haven’t been a teacher, so they don’t see the struggles that we have with some of their decisions.

What are some issues CISD is currently facing?

I think the issue constantly for Conroe ISD is our growth. We expected to grow 1,400 students this year, and we grew 1,900. We grew by 1,900 the year before, too. Growing by almost 2,000 students every single year—that’s going to create challenges. As a state-mandated system, we have to have a certain number of teachers per student. That’s always a challenge when you don’t have space.

Payroll is our biggest budget item—89 percent of our budget is people and people-related costs. When you get 2,000 more students, then your costs automatically increase. When the state—at the same time that they’re mandating those [student-teacher] ratios—is having funding decreases year over year, that’s a challenge.

What are some goals you have achieved as a board member?

When I first got elected to the board, they had already toured 19 schools. We were looking into a bond that next fall. I made a commitment that year to go back and tour those 19 schools before the end of the school year, and did so. Then, over the summer, I toured our auxiliary facilities—the bus barn, the maintenance facilities and all those additional facilities that a lot of people don’t ever think about. We were talking about renovations to things like that in the bond, so I wanted to have seen it.

On Read for a Better Life Day, I went to five different campuses and read to a total of 20 different classes. I think it’s important that kids know how much we value them and want to see them succeed. My commitment next year is to read on every single elementary [school] campus over the course of the year.

Are there any other plans for CISD to seek a District of Innovation exemption?

No, I think the main goal of that was to get the flexible calendar. If we had not done the District of Innovation plan, we wouldn’t have started [school] until about Aug. 28, and we wouldn’t have gotten out until about June 9. We had a lot of feedback that [that late of a start] was not what people wanted. I think the thing that we’ll be watching with the District of Innovation [status], with the calendar, is feedback on the winter break because it goes so far into January.